Under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), millions of uninsured adults and children will gain eligibility for Medicaid or health coverage through new health insurance Exchanges beginning in 2014. The law calls upon states to develop simple and streamlined processes for establishing, verifying, and updating eligibility for Medicaid,…

New Survey Finds States Investing in Technology, Simplifying Enrollment Processes Washington, D.C. – Nearly all states are pressing forward with information technology and process improvements to develop faster, streamlined Medicaid enrollment systems as required under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) whether or not the state elects to expand Medicaid coverage under…

A number of states have used the flexibility of the Medicaid program to develop innovative payment and delivery systems designed to coordinate and improve quality of care. This brief, based on site visits from November 2009 through March 2010, highlights care coordination and related efforts in five states: Alabama, Oklahoma,…

An integral component of Colorado Medicaid’s coordinated care initiative, the Accountable Care Collaborative, is the Statewide Data Analytics Contractor (SDAC), which is responsible for providing actionable data through a web portal to primary care providers and regional care collaborative organizations. The metrics and tools the SDAC provides undergird the effort to drive improvement in care management and individual and community health, and support the accountable care model.

Community Care of North Carolina’s Transitional Care Program (TCP) provides robust transition planning for high-risk Medicaid inpatients to support sound transitions from the hospital back to the community and reduce emergency department use and readmissions. Integral elements of the TCP are hospital-based care managers who coordinate with care managers in medical home practices; centralized health information technology, and standard care management training and tools.

Rhode Island’s Chronic Care Sustainability Initiative (CSI) is a multi-payer patient-centered medical home program in which the one Medicaid health plan and all commercial health plans in the state participate. Hallmarks of the initiative are engaged leadership, mandatory participation but participatory governance, a common contract used by all payers, and investments in health information technology and other support for practice transformation.

Under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), there will be a new continuum of coverage options available beginning in 2014. While there currently is significant focus on enrolling eligible people into these new coverage options, it also is important to plan for how to keep eligible people enrolled in coverage over…

The Alliance for Health Reform and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation co-sponsored this briefing to have a panel of experts answer questions about how some aspects of pending health reform proposals may have a substantial impact on rural care. What provisions in the various reform proposals affect rural health care?…

Under the ACA, states have a new Medicaid option to establish “health homes” designed to improve care coordination and integration and reduce costs for beneficiaries with chronic conditions. Thus far, 15 states have implemented health home programs. Following on a 2012 brief profiling Medicaid health home programs in the first six states to adopt the option, this brief describes the health home programs in the nine states that have implemented them since that time, and highlights common themes across them as well as distinctions among them.

The Alliance for Health Reform hosted a September 28 briefing to discuss electronic health records (EHRs), and the progress of the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act. Speakers explored such questions as: How does health information technology fit in the strategy for health care delivery transformation?…